Su Iong Kio
Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Saint Joseph, Macau (China)
Abstract
With their widespread popularity, Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have been playing critical roles in social movements and political campaigns. The sheer power embedded in the interaction within SNSs has brought unprecedented amount of communication between their members and the mass population. The same power has been pursued actively in the field of education, in hope that this communication channel can be better utilized to uplift the teaching-learning practices. This paper presents the result of an experiment using Facebook as a supplementary tool in students’ learning experience in addition to the tradition face-to-face in-class learning. During the experiment, students are encouraged to use the social networking site to engage each other in terms of information, opinion, discussion and collaboration. At the end of the experiment, students express their evaluation of various aspects of this learning experience such as collaboration, trust, feedback and teacher relationship. Different elements of important academic advantages of SNS are identified to help teachers better utilize this modern tool to enhance students’
studies. Reported advantages come in the form of better relationship with the teacher; smoother collaboration between the students and an increase sense of trust among the students.
Keywords: Social Networking Site, SNS, teaching technology, new learning, student-centered.
1. Introduction
Ever since the late 1990s, when social networking site (SNS) first took its form and started developing, the social impact around its development has always drawn considerable attention from the society. They offer easy access, simple interface, powerful connectivity and integrated multimedia functionalities (Dunne, Lawlor &Rowley, 2010). They also have the most penetration into the mass population especially among young people (Pew Research, 2012). As a result of its popularity, SNS is also being pursued extensively in the education perspective. Schools and colleges have, to some extent, utilize SNS to complement the regular classroom teaching, either as discussion forum for class-related issues or as a document delivery center to give out and to collect homework and assignment. Due to the open and unrestricted nature of SNS, the discussions and conversations on those SNS platforms are mostly frank and right to the point. The feedback generated from those dialogs offer true values and, if taken serious, can improve greatly the teaching-learning environment.
2. Method and design
This research selects a class of students in a high school to participate in an SNS setting using the most popular site Facebook. A forum type discussion group was setup on Facebook to allow students from that class to initiate conversation, express opinion, request information and provide assistance to other classmates. The teacher of the class setup the group on Facebook and moderated the group. The group was only open to students from that particular class and any discussion within the group should only involve class-related issues. The group was separate from students’ personal Facebook account. The teacher would start some of the conversation usually and students can weigh in. Later on, when the students got used to the environment, they would interact with each other without the initiation from the teacher.
The group on Facebook was run for a full academic year. At the end of the year, a survey was given to the students to elicit their opinion on the experience gained from the group and to evaluate their endorsement to this new tool to help their learning. The survey is divided into six sections regarding academic advantages from using the SNS. Multiple items are included in each section on a Likert scale of 5. Each item contains a statement to which students would rate their agreement, with 1 being the least
agreeable and 5 being the most agreeable. The sample size of the class is 40. Since the sample size of this experiment is not large, thus, making it difficult for more powerful analysis such as factor or regression.
As a result, only descriptive statistics are reported for these items. The mean gives an idea of whether students give a favorable agreement to the statement or not. The standard deviation (std. dev.) gives an idea on the spread of the distribution.
3. Data Analysis
The six section surveyed in the questionnaire are Engagement, Teacher, Perception, Trust, Collaboration and Sense of Classroom Community. The survey questions are mostly derived from existing literatures but slightly modified to fit the context of SNS utilization for this experiment. On the scale of 1 to 5, a mean of 3 or above would imply a general agreement to the question and a mean of less than 3 would imply a general disagreement. The Cronbach alpha value for each section is all above 0.7 indicating internal data consistency.
3.1. Engagement
Engagement is the “amount of physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience” (Astin, 1984). The section on engagement from this questionnaire consists of 6 items that link to the above definition. Table 1 shows the items together with the results.
Table 1. Survey items on Engagement
On Facebook Group, mean std. dev.
1. I ask questions and contribute to class discussion. 3.38 1.33
2. I participate in group projects. 3.35 1.53
3. I discuss assignments with classmates. 3.23 1.25
4. I work with the others on activities other than coursework. 3.65 1.25
5. I discuss ideas from my readings. 2.48 1.28
6. I have discussion with classmates that are usually not very close to me. 3.00 1.63 The overall performance of most of the engagement items is quite high, except for item 5 on reading. The first 3 items for engagement on academic effort are adequate evidence for the benefits of the Facebook group. The 4th item on coordination of extracurricular activities is even more encouraging, giving acknowledgement that social networking site can be effectively utilized for both educational and out-of-school practices for both students and teachers.
3.2. The Teacher
The role of the teacher on running the Facebook group is most critical as he/she is both the administrator and the facilitator of the group. The teacher’s responsibility is multi-faceted as all other leaders in online teaching environments (Berge 1995). This is not always easy to achieve and necessary training as in teachers’ professional development needs to be address on this skill. The items on the teachers and their results are shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Survey items on the Teacher
mean std. dev.
1. The teacher helped me on technical issues of using Facebook group. 2.60 1.34 2. The teacher helped me on knowledge issues relating to homework. 2.98 1.29 3. The teacher helped me on knowledge issues relating to lecture material. 3.18 1.45 4. The teacher and I discuss about logistic issues relating to activities, events
and competitions. 4.13 1.18
5. The teacher and I talk about my personal issues. 2.40 1.08
6. The teacher and I talk about his/her personal issues. 2.35 1.10 7. The teacher has posted sufficient messages of his/her personal experience. 3.25 1.32 8. I feel I was able to know the teacher better by participating in the Facebook
group. 3.38 1.25
9. I will continue to interact with the teacher even after I finish his/her class. 3.33 1.44
The overall experience with the teacher on the Facebook group seems to be mainly on school related issues. Although the teacher attempts to engage the students with some amount of self-disclosure, they are still holding back on personal and private concerns. Nevertheless, the social presence of the teacher in the group is still valued by the students, as they appreciate the improved student-teacher relationship and an enhanced willingness to maintain future communication with the teacher.
3.3. Perception of the Facebook Group
The way students perceive the usefulness and effectiveness of the Facebook group is essential to its continual application and widespread adoption as a popular tool to complement traditional school teaching. Hurt et al. (2012) suggest from their study on perception of Facebook that students already perceive social networking site as an effective means for academic discussion. They prefer it over traditional eLearning tools which require some degree of learning curve. The perception items for this experiment are listed in Table 3.
Table 3. Survey items on the perception of the Facebook group
mean std. dev.
1. The Facebook group makes the class more interesting. 3.43 1.45 2. I enjoy the experience gained from the Facebook group. 3.23 1.48 3. The activities on the Facebook group are relevant to real-life tasks. 2.93 1.46 4. I would prefer other classes to use Facebook groups also. 3.28 1.41 5. The Facebook group was well integrated into the class. 3.18 1.28
6. Facebook group makes discussion very convenient. 3.48 1.63
7. Facebook group is more effective than other traditional communication tool. 3.20 1.47 The perception of the Facebook group from the students is positive and reassuring. They generally fulfill the criteria of convenience, connectivity and contribution. The students are in agreement that the Facebook group should be expanded to other classes to complement regular teaching in class and making the learning experience more enjoyable.
3.4. Trust
The Facebook group is a setting that encourages interaction between the students and interaction fosters relationship. Along with the development of that relationship is a level of trust that grows as the relationship between the students deepens. Studies show that trust promotes cohesiveness, identification and intra-community collaboration (Gambetta, 1998), as well as interpersonal harmony and cooperation.
Table 4 shows 5 items that assess the trust developed from the Facebook group between the students.
Table 4. Survey items on Trust
mean std. dev.
1. When I ask for help, other classmates are able to help me. 3.25 1.51 2. When classmates encounter problems, I feel free to discuss and listen. 3.15 1.44 3. I can share my thoughts and feelings with my classmates. 3.50 1.09 4. I have established a trusting relationship with my classmates. 3.40 1.48 5. It is an effective way for me to obtain meaningful information. 3.23 1.29
The items on this trust section all receive favorable scores, which indicate that the Facebook group does foster certain level of trust between the students. The elements of trust building, sharing and exchanging all exist in the group. Over a long period of interaction with each other, it is logical that students come to trust each other to a certain degree. They have to trust their classmates when they provide help for them and supply information to them. They also have to trust their classmates when they tell them how they feel about something and hope to get recognition in return. The Facebook group is just the right place to host this kind of interaction and develop the trust students need in each other.
3.5. Collaboration
As social networking sites are bringing people together in conversations on a common platform, their intrinsic advantage in forging collaboration among their users needs to be explored. Students are
able to interact with each other on projects and assignments without limitation of time and space. This interaction creates an environment that facilitates different levels of collaboration between students in order to obtain diverse types of knowledge and cognitive skills (Lin et al., 2013). Table 5 shows the items and results of the collaboration section.
Table 5. Survey items on Collaboration
mean std. dev.
1. The interaction on Facebook group helps me to know more about my
classmates 3.23 1.29
2. The Facebook group allows more interaction with classmates than
traditional ways of communication. 3.18 1.34
3. The interaction on Facebook group improves the quality of homework and
assignment. 3.48 1.26
4. Collaboration on Facebook group is critical for group projects. 3.48 1.38 5. I feel I can learn more effectively through collaboration with others. 3.20 1.32
The general feeling on collaboration is still mainly for assignments and projects. Through multiple information sources and extensive interaction on the Facebook group, students improve a lot on the quality of homework as they confirm validity of their answers or improve appearances of their presentations. To enhance overall learning outcome through collaboration, the teacher has to provide more guidance and elicitation to bring out the activeness from the students on collective learning.
3.6. Sense of Classroom Community
Classroom community is a sense of emotional connectedness between the students in a class that provides support to each other to not only complete successfully a class or a program, but also to learn more (Rovai, 2002). This emotional connectedness is manifested through knowledge sharing and interest discussion with classmates both in school and elsewhere. Items in Table 6 evaluate the impact of the Facebook group on classroom community.
Table 6. Survey items on Sense of Classroom Community
mean std. dev.
1. Facebook group allows me to share my personal interests. 2.80 1.38 2. Facebook group allows me to find and share educational resources 3.18 1.30
3. Facebook group promotes knowledge sharing. 3.30 1.45
4. Facebook group makes it easy to initiate discussion. 3.43 1.22 5. Facebook group encourages learner-centered activities. 3.00 1.54
The sense of classroom community is mostly displayed in the discussion and interaction processes on the Facebook group. Students give favorable agreement to the ease of discussion on the Facebook group which is a logical outcome given the social nature of Facebook. The students also feel that knowledge sharing is at a reasonable level and it adds to the sense of classroom community by a culture of sharing with each other. The only less favorable answer is in question 1 which refers to sharing personal interest. Since the group only encourages class-related issues, students are mostly deferring personal interest to their personal member accounts on Facebook.
4. Discussion
The experiment on the Facebook group is a valuable experience for both the students and the teacher. It elevates the participation of the students in the discussion of academic related issues. It brings the students closer to each other through a sense of classroom community and also closer to the teacher as the interaction with the teacher on the Facebook group has increased significantly. It enhances the trust between the students through their collaboration on assignments and projects.
Students generally have a good perception of the Facebook group which they feel is academically beneficial to them. Engagement and sense of classroom community are both above average and should get more attention for future administration. The relatively low score is the role of the teacher.
That is due to the fact that the items in the section on the teacher have a lot on personal issues and this is an area that needs to exercise caution anyway since it requires great skills from the teacher to venture into
personal issues with students. Through these data, a relatively comprehensive understanding of the operation of the Facebook group has been achieved and could be employed in subsequent application of any social networking sites to complement regular academic learning at an extended scale by any schools.
5. Conclusion
This research incorporates the fast-growing trend of social networking into the classroom teaching and learning environment. The results of the experiment should serve as a starting point for schools and teachers to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing social networking sites for academic purposes. With the ever expanding popularity and penetration of social networking sites, it would not be a question of ‘if’, but a question of ‘when’, schools start to realize the importance of this platform in enhancing the regular teaching-learning mechanisms in today’s schools.
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